Guide wires are used to facilitate percutaneous procedures in which the guide wire is threaded into a human patient using X-ray guidance. The guide wires are manually threaded by a physician or other medical personnel but this requires that the operator be adjacent to the patient and so be in the immediate vicinity of the X-ray radiation providing the image used for guidance. Systems have been developed, such as that disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,887,549 incorporated herein by reference, which allow the guide wires to be threaded into the patient robotically and thus allow the user or operator to be remote from the patient and the X-ray radiation. The tip of the guide wire may be manually shaped into an arcuate shape to assist in the navigation of the guide wire.